The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy


My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. What can I say. This book took my soul apart and abandoned it in pathetic, tattered remnants. I spent a few days picking up the pieces.

This story glows in my mind now like an ember, seared into my imagination like a brand on bare flesh. It may crust over, but that fiery mark will remain. The pain was worth it -- oh so worth it -- for the agony of beauty this book creates.

For the desperate love that is palpable on every page. For the aching and horror and staggering loss, but also for the hope and angelic selflessness.

I envy anyone who has yet to go through its rite.

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Passages from The Road

I've always loved copying favorite passages from books. Here are a few I'd like to share from my current read:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy.


The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void. Carried forth and scattered and carried forth again. Everything uncoupled from its shoring. Unsupported in the ashen air. (10)

They stood on the far shore of a river and called to him. Tattered gods slouching in their rags across the waste. Trekking the dried floor of a mineral sea where it lay cracked and broken like a fallen plate. (54)

The nights were blinding cold and casket black and the long reach of the morning had a terrible silence to it. Like a dawn before battle. (137)

The soft black talc blew through the streets like squid ink uncoiling along a sea floor and the cold crept down and the dark came early (193)

Some good words:

• rachitic
• siwash
• claggy
• catamite
• kerf
• dentil
• chary
• illucid
• mendicant
• travois
• loess
• torsional

Do you have any favorite passages from this book?

Photo by J. Steuben